Beach Balls

From The South Side To The North Shore, The Gritty Charms Of A Melting Plot Of Sands

August 09, 1990|By Barbara Brotman.

The beach is a place of universality, calling forth deep-seated instincts. Do we not all desire to dig deep holes in sand and fill them with water? Do we not all lie facing the sun? Do we not all read trashy books? Do we not all wear tiny swimsuits when we would look far better in chain mail armor?

Come summer, the Chicago area is a beach town. Suddenly, we all have summer homes. Coincidentally, they are the same as our winter homes. Only now we have a beach nearby.

We have 32 beaches in Chicago alone, from Calumet Beach at 95th Street to Juneway Terrace Beach at the city`s border with Evanston.

We have beaches in Indiana. We have beaches in the north suburbs.

This is fortunate, because we really like our beaches. The Chicago Park District`s beaches attracted 17,091,072 visitors last year, although surely some were repeat guests.

Neighborhood beaches have personalities and quirks that reflect their communities, their histories and their reputations. To help you find the beach that is right for you, we present the following guide to a few Chicago-area beaches.

Oak Street Beach

This is the prime city beach, tucked prettily into the elegant Gold Coast, where the local streets double as the beach parking lot, to residents` dismay.

It is a sociable beach, in a mildly lascivious sort of way, something like the lakeshore equivalent of a wet T-shirt contest.

``The reason we come here is because of the ladies,`` said Chris Nosalik, 22, a furniture mover from the Northwest Side. ``They`re young, compared to us.``

``School-aged, kind of,`` said his friend and employer, Gary Cunningham, 23, part-owner of a moving company.

``And they are down here looking for men,`` Nosalik said. ``Otherwise, they wouldn`t doll themselves up like that.``

But the young men expressed disappointment that their attempts to converse with young women have been largely unsuccessful.

``They always play hard to get,`` Nosalik complained. ``They kind of look for the guys that have that-what do you call it?``

``That rich look,`` Cunningham said.

Indeed, Abbe Appel, a student who lives in Griffith, Ind., confirmed that she does not welcome unsolicited remarks on her appearance, despite the fact that she was wearing an extremely minimal bikini and was well aware that her appearance was quite favorable.

``Some guy came up to me while I was laying out and said: `You know, you have a really nice body. Can I kiss you?` `` she said. ``If you have a bathing suit like this, they think you`re promiscuous.``

Why does she have a bathing suit like that?

``I`m 20,`` she said. ``It`s not going to last forever.``

So how does one start a successful conversation at Oak Street Beach?

``Sometimes you hit them with a football,`` advised Tom Marquardt, 19, a student from Wood Dale. ``Not really hit them. Just throw it near them.``

Adam Fisher, 17, of Des Plaines, at the beach with a group of high school friends, does not know how. He wishes he did.

``We see it happen a lot,`` he said. ``Just not to us.``

Interview With Boy Buried in Sand at North Avenue Beach

Tribune: Did you want to be buried?

Jimmy Valdes, 8: Yes.

Tribune: How does it feel?

Jimmy: It tickles.

Rocky Delgado, 8: Do news reporters have to be nosy?

Tribune: Yes. Can you breathe?

Jimmy: Yes.

Nicholas Segura, 8: He always breathes. He`d better be still.

(The sand above Jimmy`s chest begins to crack. Suddenly, Jimmy jumps up and runs into the water.)

Paul Valdes, 9: I`m next!

Rocky: I`m next!

Rainbow Beach

The entrance drive does not bode well. To get to the beach, you turn off South Shore Drive on 79th Street and pass U.S. Steel`s South Works, a water-purification plant and thick weeds.

But then you find yourself on a large and quite respectable beach that was once one of the most crowded in Chicago.

``I can remember in the mid-`60s, on weekends you couldn`t walk on the beach. It was all blankets,`` said Jim Donovan, a Chicago police officer who grew up in the South Shore neighborhood and now lives in Beverly. ``They used to close the parking lot at noon.``

To his north, the beach was occupied by only a large flock of pigeons. The tracks of the sanitizer truck, used at all Chicago beaches to sift rubble out of the sand, were undisturbed.

``This is like a private beach to me,`` said Mark Murphy, a building engineer from Evergreen Park who also grew up in South Shore. ``And it`s got the best view of the city on a clear day.``

It still has children frolicking in the water. And it has Shannon Sterling and Leland Brown, brothers who ride here regularly on their bicycles. ``We come here two or three times a week,`` said Shannon, 13. ``I bring my bike here, and people watch it. Nobody tries to steal it.``

``We even got a secret place where we go to think,`` said Leland, 11.

``It`s over there,`` said Shannon, pointing to a jetty at the north end of the beach, the secret apparently being not too closely held.